


Persian Roses

by StarlightAsteria



Series: The Sun is Waning [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Harry Potter Next Generation, James Potter II is a bully like his grandfather, Lucius is the paterfamilias, Magic Is Sentient, Malfoy/Weasley feud, Pureblood Culture, Pureblood Politics, Pureblood Society, Scorpius has a brother and sister, The Sun is Waning-verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 20:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8462617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightAsteria/pseuds/StarlightAsteria
Summary: Lady Phoebe Malfoy hates James Sirius Potter.
One thing is certain - she's no Lily Evans.
Enter Lord Caius Trevelyan. 
Next-Gen.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi Everyone!
> 
> Welcome to this new fic of mine; it's my first next-gen, which is exciting, and part of a larger universe which I will add fics to sporadically. This owes a debt to the other writers who play within the Pureblood culture playground, notably Roelle. So yes, I've riffed on a few common tropes. 
> 
> The backstory to this is basically: Draco had an affair with Hermione around the time Phoebe was born, there was a scandal and the Malfoys picked Astoria over Draco, because he walked out on them all. 
> 
> I've messed around slightly with the ages of the Next-Gen kids: because I see Astoria and Draco marrying when she turns 18, and Scorpius being born in the same year.
> 
> Thus: 
> 
> Scorpius Hyperion - born 2000  
> Apollo Orion - born 2003  
> Phoebe Persephone - born 2006  
> James Sirius - born 2006  
> Albus Severus - born 2007  
> Lily Luna - born 2009
> 
> Enjoy!

He’d touched her hair. The thought makes her want to retch and retch and retch until the taste _(horrid, grabbing, bullying, death by Cruciatus)_ of his magic fades from her awareness. He had no right to her, any part of her at all, and most certainly not her hair, that shimmering starless-night curtain that when unbound from its customary elaborate twist, fell to her ankles. She knows James Sirius Potter does not adhere to the Traditions, established millenia before, but that is no reason to harass her, as he had done for the past seven years, almost from the moment he had set eyes on her at Platform 9 3/4, standing between her two elder brothers, Scorpius and Apollo, the two boys dwarfing her then as now _._

Onto the Hogsmaede snow she expels her scallop ceviche-wild mushroom tart-crêpes suzette luncheon with a hacking gasp, her right hand extended, bracing her weight on the trunk of a decidious tree stripped as bare as a skeleton by the winter frost, tears freezing on her dark eyelashes. 

A hand _(firm, warm, comforting)_ slips around her waist to steady her, and the sensation of relief that sweeps through her like the crackling flames in the library fieplace at home stuns her. She turns her head, her mind unable to understand what her body somehow instinctively recognises _(an anchor, hope, life, the sweetest, most exhilarating opposite to that lecherous sickness)._

She sways. 

“My Lady Phoebe?” His hand tightens at her waist, holding her upright. Her eyes travel up to meet his for the first time, taking in the rich material of his dark green winter robes _(elf-woven velvet, unless she is much mistaken),_ the elegant fingers of her left hand twined into his lapel, the blinding white colour of his starched collar, his dark brown hair tied at his nape with a black ribbon, his high, sharp cheekbones. His gaze _(as deep as the sea, as green as the moss of the deepest forests)_ is trained on hers, brow furrowed in concern, and she inhales sharply.

“My Lord Caius?” She replies shakily, flushing _(shy)_ under his scrutiny. 

“Yes.”

It is too much. _He_ is too much. He is more than a passing acquaintance of her eldest brother Scorpius, but he must be some three or four years older, judging by everything her grandfather Lucius, the _paterfamilias_ of House Malfoy, has said about him. So - twenty-eight to her eighteen. A man in his prime, as handsome and wealthy and cunning and dangerous as Malfoys like when considering suitors for the exceedingly rare occurence that is an heiress-by-blood, his voice sends sparks of exhilaration through her and she is more than slightly overwhelmed. 

Caius Trevelyan vanishes the evidence of her distress with a quick flick of his wand and Phoebe flushes again _(he must have seen her vomit, dear Circe)._ He lifts her right hand to his warm lips and Morgana have mercy, but their bodies are almost touching, and everything in her is focused on him. When he speaks again, it is a caress.

“May I be of assistance?”

She toys with his lapel, embarrassed and humiliated and sick to the core. “He - I - he touched my hair - ” she chokes out.

His eyes take in her disheveled appearance, thick strands of hair falling over her left ear, her hairpins half-wrenched out, locks tumbling down over her shoulder, and they narrow dangerously. “Who?” he snarls, and there is Fiendfyre in his eyes, in the grim set of his elegant mouth, in the stiffening of his broad shoulders. 

“Ja-James Potter.” Her voice is almost a sob, and damn him to Hades for reducing her to this, this scared little creature who fears even walking through Hogsmaede on a Saturday afternoon - she, a Malfoy! She wants to give full vent to her fury - but she is a Malfoy through to the core, and Malfoys plot. Malfoys do not rage, they _revenge,_ and she knows that as soon as she tells them, her grandfather and her brothers, not to mention her mother’s family and her cousins, will show the country exactly what happens when one of their own is set upon. _Paterfamilias,_ she knows, has been looking for an excuse to revenge himself upon the Weasley clan for decades - their rise at the Malfoy’s expense has not been forgotten. Her house will throw their full weight behind her, and nothing will stop them. 

Somehow, though, the knowledge that James Potter will pay, does not settle her, does not soothe her - does not heal her _(there is only one thing that can, whether she admits it to herself or not),_ and so, when she continues, it is with a snarl, a hiss in her mouth that masks the entreaty in her eyes _(I never want to feel this again do not let me feel this again I cannot feel this again -_

“I am not a prize, some _thing_ to be won - by Morgana, I am a _Malfoy._ He will not touch me again, I swear to Salazar.” She tosses her head back proudly. She quickly, violently pushes away the insidious thought that she wouldn’t put it past James Potter to slip her a love potion - the Weasleys are notorious for using them, and the existence of love potions in the Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes shops would certainly corroborate the rumours from her grandparents’ time and her mother’s time at Hogwarts that Molly Weasley did indeed know how to brew love potions. Love potions, and more specifically the forging of a false mate-bond in order to gain access to Malfoy lands is what originally sparked the Malfoy-Weasley feud in the first place, she knows.   

“He is gone, my lady.” Caius sees through her mask of bravado immediately and she trembles in his arms, feeling the extent of her weakness. She does not want to feel so powerless, but his kindness disarms her. She could never parry such unaffected gallantry, such genuine kindness _(they have never really interacted before, and yet he comforts her and stays with her, and yet he understands her)_ with her habitual hauteur and sardonic disdain. 

He has seen her at her worst, at her weakest, and yet he does not turn away. She doesn’t want to think about _why,_ because it can’t possibly mean what she thinks it means. She daren’t hope - not now, not after James Potter cornered her and forced his fingers through her locks and made her vomit from horror and shame and fury.

“For how long?” Phoebe laughs bitterly. “No, my lord, he will not rest until he has me. Never was there such a name so apt as James Potter the Second.”

“My lady - ”

“I am no Lily Evans.”

“Indeed not,” Caius snorts admiringly. “You would never accept the advances of a man who persecuted those who are your friends.”

Phoebe scoffs. “I should hope not.” 

Caius laughs, and the sound winds itself into Phoebe’s wounded heart, and they stand together for a time, his right arm around her waist, her little hands fisted into his lapels, his left lightly touching her elbow, and she laughs because even though all of his attention is on her, he still has his wand out, clasped in his left hand. 

“Once a lord, always a lord,” she says, flicking her eyes down to his wand hand. 

A pleased smirk of a smile tugs at his lips. “Naturally,” he replies. 

“Allow me to escort you home, my lady.”

Her smile is her most truly genuine yet, the one that lights her silver eyes, the one that only her family and closest friends see. Phoebe’s heart soars. Home means the magic sprung from a thousand years of blood magic that becomes an extension of her, an extra blanket at night. Home is the _paterfamilias_ and her grandmother, and their vow to kill and to die for her, as she has vowed to them. Home is long rides with her mother across the hills of their estate. Home is her brothers laughing at how bad her waltzing is after a term at school not practicing. 

“Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

 

The _paterfamilias_ is already galloping down the drive to meet them when they pass through the gates, closely followed by Scorpius and Apollo, one brother flanking their grandfather on either side, horses champing at the bit, snorting and prancing. The men have dismounted before their horses shudder abruptly to a halt in front of her, and Phoebe is enveloped in Scorpius’s arms before she has time to say a word. Only Caius’s political prowess prevents him from embarrassing himself and throwing his head back in exultation. Coming to Malfoy Manor, now, is like drowning in Phoebe’s magic, and it is _everything._

But the _paterfamilias_ misses nothing, and his eyes tighten fractionally. 

“Your Grace,” Caius bows fluidly from the waist. 

“What happened?”

“James Potter, your Grace.” Caius swallows. “He touched her hair.”

“He what?” Apollo Malfoy snarls, his movement forward only stopped by his grandfather throwing out his cane in his path. 

“It’s the truth, _pater,_ ” Scorpius interjects, tightening his grip on his little sister as she burrows her way into his cloak as through attempting to disappear.

It takes only a single look at his granddaughter for Lucius Malfoy to nod in agreement. “Very well. I shall know how to act.” The _paterfamilias_ gestures towards the horses. “Get Phoebe inside to her mother and grandmother.” 

As the brothers lift their little sister onto Scorpius’s hunting bay, Phoebe lifts her head. “Lord Caius,” she says, turning towards him, shifting in Scorpius’s arms.

“My lady,” he replies, allowing some of the reverence he feels to sink into his tone, as he steps closer to her and takes her extended hand in his and lifts it once again to his lips. This time, he keeps his eyes on hers and has the joy of seeing them widen in surprise and hesitant affection. 

“Your assistance was invaluable.”

And then Scorpius, Lord Malfoy, wheels the horse around and the three siblings are galloping away, up the drive. Caius does not realise he is staring after them _(after her)_ until the _paterfamilias_ turns impassively to him and says, “Would you care to accompany me to my library for a game of chess?”

It is not a request.

 

* * *

 

 

Phoebe does not see the Lord Caius again for three days and without him, even though she is at home, surrounded by those she loves and who love her, she feels strangely bereft. She can see the way the rest of her family look at her; her brothers insist on accompanying her everywhere, even to feed her pony Felix, her first mount of her own, old and grizzled now. With her grandfather she sits in his study and they plot their next moves, they draft newspaper articles that will bring James Potter’s reputation crashing down, and the _paterfamilias_ watches her as he always does, with sharp grey eyes and his elegant fingers steepled. She does not have time to think, to contemplate, to try and understand what has happened.

But it is her mother who notices that she fidgets in the moments of silence, that she shifts restlessly, that a slow, secret smile creeps over her face when no-one is watching, and so Phoebe is not surprised when she is called into Astoria Malfoy’s white and gold sitting room on the first floor, the one that overlooks the Persian rose garden. They go through the ritual of tea serving - Russian Caravan for the Lady Astoria and Lapsang Suchong for Phoebe - in an easy silence. 

“You are unhappy, little one.”

“Mama - I - ”

Astoria lowers her teacup. “Allow me to rephrase: you are unhappy when you are not in Lord Caius’s presence.”

“Mama!” 

“I don’t say this to embarass you, Phoebe,” her mother continues, raising a hand. “I say it because I can see it.”

“I - ” Phoebe twists her hands in her robes. “There is an affinity between us, I think - I hope.” She blushes. 

“Good.” 

Phoebe blinks.

“He’s in the Persian garden.” Her mother allows herself a secret smile. Phoebe looks at her in shock.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying, Mama?”

Astoria’s answering smile is pure Slytherin. “Of course I am.”

 

* * *

 

 

His back is to her, his gloved hands resting loosely at his sides as he looks up at the clear winter sky.

“My Lord Caius?” Phoebe ventures, stepping into the garden, her boots crunching on the snow-covered paths, trailing her bare fingers over the Persian roses, nourished into bloom all year round by the Manor’s magic.

He spins around and catches sight of her and smiles, and she smiles in return.

“My Lady Phoebe,” he bows at the waist before taking her hands _(so little, so dainty compared to his)_ in his and raising them to his lips, his thumbs brushing over her knuckles.

She trembles and shivers.

“You are well?”

“Yes,” she replies. “Better, at least - ” she continues hurriedly before her boldness deserts her - “better now, for your company.” She is rewarded with his slow, pleased curl of a smile. 

“I am glad.”

They pause for a moment, and the Lord Caius offers her his arm, and they walk in silence for a time. It is not that there is nothing to say, but Phoebe allows herself to simply revel in his presence _(she is drowning)._

“My lady,” he says, and they turn to face each other. She has to crane her neck to look at him, and the intensity in his eyes does not frighten her. “Your magic has the most curious effect on me, you know.”

“My lord?”

Gently he takes her right hand in his and brings it to his cheek, sighing, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment, and when he opens them again, their colour is deeper and more vibrant than it has ever been. “I am - ” he shakes his head “I am overwhelmed, speechless in your presence. I feel _more_ than I have ever felt before,” he rasps hoarsely. 

Phoebe smiles slowly, and she brings her other hand up to his face so that she cups his cheeks. She can feel his pulse thundering in his neck, the swallows of his throat, and she steps closer to him as his hands dare to rest on her waist, their warmth sinking into her body even through the layers of leather and velvet and wool. 

“My lord,” she swallows, “Caius,” the flash of his eyes as she says his name, the tightening of his grip on her waist, hands fisting the material, tells her she has made the right choice, “I am a Malfoy. I want everything from you, or else I want nothing at all, but I will not settle.” Her sire’s treachery _(desertion of her mother)_ even now is a sword over her head and she will not be humiliated as her mother was humiliated _(a deliberate breaking of bonds, a deliberate rejection of his pregnant wife, and for taking up with his mistress - the Muggleborn Hermione Granger-Weasley, a married woman herself, no less - retribution was swift: disowned and cursed never again to sire children, his mistress cursed with infertility herself - an old clause in Malfoy marriage contracts to prevent illegitimate children gaining the Lordship.)_

He does not hesitate, eyes softening. He knows the tale to which she hints, knows how the scandal angered and hurt them _(he knows how pitiless the Malfoy wrath can be)._ “I am yours, my lady, utterly.” 

Caius does not say it because he wishes not to anger her _(he would never be so patronising)_ but because he is utterly incapable, he has realised in the three days they have spent apart, from answering in any other way. The notion should terrify him, but it does not. 

Her eyes widen and he knows he has surprised her with his easy acquiescence. Phoebe strokes his cheeks, pleased, and he nuzzles her hands before he can stop himself. “My lady,” he breathes shakily. He swallows unsteadily - he must - he must _know -_

She reads his thoughts, whether in the earnestness in his eyes or - “Am I your equal?” Her expression is serious, utterly impassive, and only the proud glint in her eyes betrays her. He will have her as his equal or not at all - that is her caveat - no matter her inclination.

Slowly, deliberately, holding her gaze and her hands, he lowers himself onto his knees in the snow, silently thanking Merlin for the invention of water-repelling charms. Whatever vow of loyalty, of fealty she wishes him to make - he will swear it. He will give her whatever reassurance she asks for, until he can prove himself to her in the way she desires in thought and word and deed.

He does not need to answer her question in words. She is his equal - and more. 

Phoebe huffs out a laugh, shaking her head ruefully, and Caius takes a moment to appreciate the way the light falls on her hair, her bright silver eyes, her pale skin. It is his turn to be surprised as she joins him kneeling in the snow. “I said take me as your equal, not put me on a pedestal.”

“If you asked it of me, I would.”

“And if I asked you to challenge me instead?” She raises an eyebrow, smiling. 

“Do you always have the last word?” he flirts back. 

“I’m a Malfoy,” she shrugs elegantly, and that is response enough.

Caius laughs and pulls her into his arms _(fully, properly, at last!)_ and slides his hands up _(gently, lightly, like the touch of a butterfly)_ to cup her face, and the way she arches herself under his touch sends a wave of euphoria so great through him that he groans and can’t help brushing his gloved thumb over her bottom lip. 

“May I?”

She nods. 

“Phoebe,” he whispers, and this time he feels the way her entire being shudders in delight as he finally kisses her. She is soft, so soft, and he growls into her mouth as she sinks into him. The sensation of their magic twining and dancing makes Phoebe sway, lightheaded, his arms the only things holding her up at all. She whimpers and then mewls when he lifts his head to trail light kisses along her jawline, huffing out a delighted laugh when he nips her neck with another murmur of her name. 

“Well then,” she says breathlessly, and Caius lifts his head to look at her curiously. “Court me, wed me, bed me - ” she does not miss his sharp inhale nor the darkening of his eyes “ - darling.” 

Phoebe sees him blink, eyes suspiciously bright, and take a shuddering breath, his expression full of wonder at the affection in her tone. 

“Oh, my lady,” he sighs, his mouth a breath away from hers. And then he kisses her again, so deeply she loses any sense of coherence. There is only his arms around her waist, his torso against hers, the warmth of his gaze on her, their breath mingling in the cold winter air, and his low, vibrating voice in her ear, sending shivers down her spine. 

“My lady, my beauty, _Phoebe._ ”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Their betrothal portrait appears in _The Daily Prophet_ the following Monday. Phoebe stands on Caius’s left, and she is dressed in a diaphanous gown of silver silk and a white fur cloak, the Trevelyan diamond on her hand and the Malfoy emeralds at her throat, and the Trevelyan white-and-green ribbons wound into her hair. 

At the same time, Aurors are questioning the Weasley clan about Amortentia trafficking. 

 

* * *

 

 

On her wedding night, Phoebe goes to Caius with her hair unbound, adorned only with a wreath of Persian roses, her wedding gown abandoned on a chair, and winds herself around his handsome form as they share kiss after langorous kiss.

Only then does Caius dare to run his fingers through her hair _(again and again and again)._     


End file.
